Related Panel on women in news set for Monday (April 19) Panel discusses media coverage of LGBT community (April 17) Lehrer draws on many presidential debates to analyze political process (April 15)

Andrew Nagorski, a senior editor at Newsweek International and former foreign correspondent, told students Monday that  foreign correspondents don’t just cover war. There are ways to report without being embedded or close to frontlines.

Nagorski covered those "other kinds of stories" as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, Warsaw and Berlin and wrote four books before becoming a senior edtior.  This week, he visited IU to describe his work and talk about his latest book, The Greatest Battle: Stalin, Hitler and the Desperate Struggle for Moscow that Changed the Course of World War II.

Monday, Nagorski visited associate professor Owen Johnson’s J110 Foundations of Journalism class to talk about his career as a foreign correspondent. Tuesday evening, he gave a general lecture at the IMU.

Nagorski told J110 students that he never majored in journalism; instead, he wrote for his college newspaper. He taught at a high school in Massachusetts for three years, but when he was offered tenure at the age of 25, he decided to apply for a job in journalism. This led him to a trial program and, eventually, a job at Newsweek.

“I always had an interest in going abroad,” Nagorski said. “There was a whole romantic notion about being a foreign correspondent.”

Between freshman and sophomore year in college, Nagorski went to New York and became a copy boy for the New York Times. His job was to take the glue pots used to revise articles (a physical form of the digital “copy and paste”) off editors’ desks, scrape off the congealed glue, stir the pots and put them back.

While Nagorski typed his first book on a typewriter, something he said he can never imagine doing again, he views technology as a mixed blessing.

“Now, you’re reachable all the time,” Nagorski said. “That’s great in terms of instant communication but it also means that foreign correspondents are at the beck and call of their desks.”

One trend Nagorski noted is that publications are cutting back on the number of foreign correspondents, a development he said is “a loss for everybody.”

Nagorski offered students several pieces of advice throughout his Q&A session. His first tip was to learn foreign languages. Nagorski speaks Polish, French, Russian and German. However, he said Chinese and Arabic are important tools for aspiring journalists.

“You really want to get into a culture and learn about the society,” he said. “Go there and get to know the people and the concerns that they won’t tell a stranger.”

He emphasized that reporters should strive to give people the idea that they are getting inside a country or society.

“You want to give people something different than what they’re reading every day. Especially in magazine journalism, stories need a narrative thread that pulls it all together.”

While Nagorski said there is no set way to get into journalism, he ended with advice.

“If your goal is job security, you need a new profession,” he said. “You’ve got to be willing to take risks, be good with different mediums, develop interests and seize all the opportunities available.”

Courtesy photo

NBC’s Bob Dotson visits Monday.

NBC News correspondent Bob Dotson has made a name for himself telling stories from outside the mainstream. His “American Stories with Bob Dotson,” about the extraordinary in everyday people, airs on the Today show and other NBC programs.

Dotson will share his video expertise Monday in a general lecture to the public and with students in assistant professor Mike Conway’s J520 Video Storytelling class and his J410 Media as Social Institutions class.

The public talk, “A Survival Kit for Professional Storytellers: How to Compete with Cell Phones and Web Sites,” will be in the Ernie Pyle Auditorium at 8 p.m.

Dotson’s work has won more than 100 broadcast journalism honors, including four Emmy Awards, and prizes from the Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards and the Society of Professional Journalists.

Six IU students heard advice and feedback from prize-winning photojournalists at the annual National Press Photographers Association’s "Flying Short Course" in Chicago last weekend.

The event is in several locations on the same weekend, offering short, intense workshops to NPPA members and photography students across the nation. Each stop is a two-day event featuring national faculty one day and local faculty the second. The second day also features multimedia workshops.

The School of Journalism provided funds to send the small group to Chicago. Journalism graduate student Ben Weller was among the student attendees.

“This was an opportunity to bump shoulders with some of the best photojournalists in the field, and that was literally what we did,” he said of networking with professionals such as Renee Byer, 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner for feature photography, and David Gilkey, 2007 Emmy winner for outstanding current news coverage. “It was a small-scale conference with big names, which meant we could ask questions of, and engage in conversation with, people who are covering some of the most important stories of our time.”

Beyond the photography techniques, faculty-professionals discussed how they gained access and built trust with their subjects. They also counseled attendees on the job market and the importance of visual storytelling, Weller said.

“The photograph often gets treated as an accessory to the story, but photographs by people like Carolyn Cole and Renee Byer really are the story,” he said. “In an age when newspapers get just a passing glance from readers, a good photograph can capture the attention of audiences and often moves them toward a greater understanding of the world and the people in it."

The IU Arbutus, individual students and IDS staffers won top awards at the National College Media convention in Washington, D.C., last weekend. The competition is sponsored by the Associated Collegiate Press.

The Arbutus won a first place award Pacemaker and first place ACP Best of Show in the yearbook category.

In individual prizes, Ashley Wilkerson (M.A. ’07) won a first place Pacemaker for photo excellence and Andrew Shaffer (B.A.J. ’07) won a first place Pacemaker for Story of the Year, editorial.

Judges select Pacemakers based coverage and content, quality of writing and reporting, leadership on the opinion page, evidence of in-depth reporting, design, photography, art and graphics.

Other winners include:

• Mark Koenig, Pacemaker, Design of the Year/News Page, second place;
• IDS creative staff, Pacemaker, Advertising/Classified Section, second place;
• Senior Nina Mehta, Pacemaker, Design of the Year/Illustration, honorable mention;
• IDS staff, ACP Best of Show, newspaper and special, honorable mention.

Director of Experiential Education and Recruitment Jessica Gall was one of nine honored as a contender for the NCAA Woman of the Year award at Saturday’s banquet in Indianapolis. Whitney Myers, a swimmer from the University of Arizona, won the top prize.

Now in its 17th year, the Woman of Year award honors exceptional female student athletes who have excelled in academics, athletics and community leadership, and have completed their collegiate athletics eligibility, according to the NCAA.

Gall, M.A. ’07, is a three-time NCAA All-American who placed ninth in the 2007 NCAA Championships 10,000 meter. She has met the qualifying standard for the 2008 Olympic Trials.

She was the 2005 and 2006 Jack D. Tichenor Award winner after earning the highest cumulative grade point average of any Hoosier female student athlete. She is the winner of a NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

ESPN’s Sage Steele, an IU alumna who talked to students Friday at Ernie Pyle Hall, was in Indianapolis to cover the awards. She and ESPN’s Debbie Antonellie hosted the event, which will be broadcast on ESPN2 Dec. 7.

Gall said the top 30 nominees spent the weekend in Indianapolis at a reception, at a Habitat for Humanity site where they helped build a minibarn, and preparing for the banquet.

“It was great to get to meet all of these very accomplished women from all over the country,” Gall said in an e-mail from London, where she is headed to organize a spring course for the school. “Everyone’s story was inspirational and proved that not only can sports play a powerful role in women’s lives, but also that we really can do anything if we put our minds to it.”

Early registration for spring semester began Oct. 18  with graduate students and ends Nov. 16 with freshmen.

Here’s the schedule:

The full IU schedule of classes now is online, though School of Journalism recorder Jean Person says the information may not be completely accurate until Thursday. Students should verify their schedules just before they register to be sure they catch any changes.

For all IU courses, connect through OneStart or connect through the Registrar’s Web site.

Spring journalism classes are on this Web site under Academics > Upcoming Courses.

Long-range planners may check out a preliminary listing of summer classes is online as well. Check out www.summer.indiana.edu.

Photo by Ben Weller

Associate professor Steve Raymer participated in a panel discussion during an earlier Reporting India session of the series. He’ll talk about his own work Friday.

Related Read an IU press release about Raymer and his new book Routledge publishes The Global Journalist (May 13) School research group launches survey (May 10) Faculty, student work set for AEJMC presentation (May 10)

Starting in 2003, associate professor and photojournalist Steve Raymer circled the globe, researching and photographing the Indian diaspora in 15 countries. This fall, Indiana University Press published his new book, Images of a Journey: India in Diaspora, that documents in photos and text what he found.

Raymer talks about his experience and his book Friday, 5:30 p.m. in the Ernie Pyle Auditorium. The talk is part of a semester-long series of talks and conferences sponsored by the School of Journalism and the India Studies Program.

Twenty to 25 million Indians live outside India on all seven continents. In Images of a Journey: India in Diaspora, Raymer chronicles the struggles and triumphs of these Indian emigrants as they toil in the sugar plantations of Trinidad, carve lives for themselves in English towns and run some of the most powerful organizations in the United States.

In addition to teaching photojournalism, media ethics and international newsgathering, Raymer also is on the faculty of IU’s Russian and East European Institute and its India Studies Program. Before coming to IU in 1995, Raymer directed the National Geographic Society News Service. He has received a citation for excellence in foreign reporting from the Overseas Press Club of America and in 1976 was named the magazine photographer of the year by the National Press Photographers Association.

All talks in the series are free and open to the public. 

Joel Pett

Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Joel Pett visits this week as a professional-in-residence.

Related Panel on women in news set for Monday (April 19) Panel discusses media coverage of LGBT community (April 17) Lehrer draws on many presidential debates to analyze political process (April 15)

Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and Bloomington native Joel Pett will visit Ernie Pyle Hall this week as the School of Journalism Roy W. Howard Professional-in-Residence.

Pett, on staff at the Lexington Herald-Leader since 1984, won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoon in 2000. His cartoons have appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazines nationwide, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Daily News, The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, USA Today and Chicago Sun-Times.

This week, his chief activities will be speaking to classes, and Pett will dive in Tuesday by talking to adjunct lecturer Mike Leonard’s J200 class at 2:30, EP 210. Leonard, a (Bloomington) Herald-Times columnist, was Pett’s colleague when the cartoonist freelanced for the newspaper in the 1970s and 1980s.

Other class talks include:

• Associate professor Claude Cookman’s J210 class Wednesday, Ernie Pyle Auditorium, 11:15 a.m.
• Associate professor Steve Raymer’s J410 class Wednesday, EP 214, 1 p.m.
• Professor Jack Dvorak’s J410 class Thursday, EP 214, 2:30 p.m.

Pett will visit the Herald-Times, WFIU and the Indiana Daily Student during the week as well.

Check out Pett’s work at this archive on the Herald-Leader Web site.

Photo by Rosemary Pennington

ESPN anchor Sage Steele had four internships before getting her first job.

Related Panel on women in news set for Monday (April 19) Panel discusses media coverage of LGBT community (April 17) Lehrer draws on many presidential debates to analyze political process (April 15)

ESPN anchor and IU alumna Sage Steele had a lot of advice for students gathered in the auditorium of Ernie Pyle Hall Friday morning – some of it plainly practical.

“This is not your territory,” Steele said of NFL locker rooms. “If you drop something, never pick it up. Just leave it on the ground.”

Steele said her first experience in a locker room full of naked football players was traumatic (“I ran right back out”), but she didn’t stay out for long. After her cameraman reminded her there were interviews they needed to get, Steele walked back in, picked up her microphone and remembered to keep her eyes above the waistline.

“And this isn’t just for the women,” Steele told the students. “The players look to see if there are any guys looking, too.”

Steele, B.S. ’95, was at the School of Journalism as part of the J492 Media Internships class. And, during her talk, she emphasized the importance of internships.

“I did four internships before I got my first job,” Steele said. “I did everything. You’re not going to get hired on-air for your first job. I didn’t; I was a producer first. You need to be able to do it all.”

She joined ESPN in February and currently provides SportsCenter updates as well as interviews for both ESPN First Take and Mike and Mike in the Morning. She says her ability and willingness to do it all helped her quickly leap from reporting gigs at WSTB-TV in South Bend and WISH-TV in Indianapolis to covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for WFTS-TV and the Baltimore Ravens for Comcast SportsNet.

As she leapt from job to job, Steele began forming relationships with players and coaches, including Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy while he was with the Buccaneers. But, she cautioned students, she was careful to not allow how she felt personally about someone affect what she reported.

“If you get caught up in it,” Steele said, “you’re not going to be a journalist. You still have to remember why you’re here: Because you’re trying to help people at home understand the game.”

Sports communication senior Justin Skipper said that was something he hadn’t thought of.

“I think it was interesting how she talked about how she had to ask all these hard questions to some of the people she had established relationships with,” Skipper said. “I put myself in her shoes and thought how difficult it would be to ask those tough questions, but it’s part of the job.”

Another part of the job is balancing personal life with work life. One female student, who was worried about having a relationship and career, asked Steele about the sacrifices she had to make.

“You miss a lot,” said Steele, who is married with three small children. “But I have zero regrets. It’s never going to be the right time. You’re never going to have the right house, the right job. Everything else will fall into place, but you have to have someone who’s going to support you.”

Although her parents weren’t too supportive of her career choice in the beginning. Her father wanted her to be a nurse.

“But he’s proud of me now,” Steele said, even if he does e-mail her saying he doesn’t like her hair.

And that is something students wanting a career in broadcasting have to be prepared for as well: the constant critique of how they look and sound.

“You do have to care a lot,” Steele said. “You have to be ready to be criticized about the way you look. You have to accept it or don’t do it.”

But for all the ups and downs in her career, including being told by a news director once she wasn’t worth a $2,000 raise, Steele says she can’t imagine doing anything else.

“I’ve wanted to do this almost my whole life,” Steele said. “I don’t think I’d change anything.”

Note: Graduate student and Web reporter Rosemary Pennington was a Knight Fellow in February and attended the follow up session Oct. 17-19.

What can prod almost 30 busy journalists to abandon their duties to head back to the classroom? How about a week in the Washington, D.C., area replete with access to experts, field trips to governmental agencies and the chance to shoot the breeze with other journalists.

“It’s extremely helpful,” former Press-Enterprise reporter and current Fulbright Fellow Naomi Kresge said of the Knight Center for Specialized Journalists. “It’s real work. You go to school, sit in class all day. It’s really rigorous.”

Every few months, the Knight Center brings about 30 journalists to the University of Maryland campus in College Park for a weeklong fellowship. The reporters and editors spend that time immersed in a particular issue. The idea is to help journalists covering a particular beat develop a better expertise.

The focus in February was on development during the “Cities, Suburbs and Beyond” fellowship. In mid-October, most of the reporters from February were back at the Knight Center for an intensive two-day follow up, among them St. Louis Post-Dispatch real estate reporter and IU alumna Riddhi Trivedi-St. Clair (M.A. ‘01).

“It’s a great chance to brush up on information and resources,” St. Clair said of the fellowship program. “I used several of the people who talked to us in February in stories I did.”

That’s what Knight Center director Carol Horner wants to hear. She spent 27 years in the newspaper business before moving to the center seven years ago. Horner said she thinks the journalists who go through the Knight Center fellowships, and training like it, come out the other end better reporters.

“Sources. Insight. Context,” Horner said in an e-mail interview, quoting the center’s slogan. “That says it, what we try to provide to working reporters and editors, again, with the aim of elevating the quality of information that reaches the public. Not to put too fine a point on it, or to be overly lofty, but we think our work enhances our democracy.”

And while it might enhance democracy, many of the fellows say it enhances their creativity. Journalists often do not want to share their ideas and sources with colleagues in their hometowns as there’s always the worry someone will steal a story idea. The ability to bounce ideas off reporters without that worry is a big draw for Arizona Republic city hall reporter Katie Nelson.

“More than anything, this is a chance to network and listen,” Nelson said. “You can really enhance stories, it’s my favorite part about it. It’s rejuvenating.”

The weeklong meetings in College Park will certainly always be part of what the Knight Center offers, Horner said. But she’s trying to broaden the scope of the program.

“We’ll be reaching out all the more to online and citizen journalists, expecting to foster a mutual sharing of perspectives and procedures,” Horner said. “We’ll also be putting more of our material online, making it available not only to our fellows for sharing with their newsrooms, but to anyone interested in a particular subject.”